Impact Through High-Tech Entrepreneurship

Vivek Wadhwa

Vivek Wadhwa is Vice President of Academics and Innovation at Singularity University; Fellow, Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University; Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization, and Exec in Residence at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University. Wadhwa oversees the academic programs at Singularity University, which educates a select group of leaders about the exponentially growing technologies that are soon going to change our world. These advances—in fields such as robotics, A.I., computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, medicine, and nanomaterials—are making it possible for small teams to do what was once possible only for governments and large corporations to do: solve the grand challenges in education, water, food, shelter, health, and security. In his roles at Stanford, Duke, and Emory universities, Wadhwa lectures in class on subjects such as entrepreneurship and public policy, helps prepare students for the real world, and leads groundbreaking research projects. He is an advisor to several governments; mentors entrepreneurs; and is a regular columnist for The Washington Post, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and the American Society of Engineering Education’s Prism magazine.

Before joining Duke University, Wadhwa was a technology executive known for pioneering change and innovation. He was Vice President of Information Services at New York–based investment banking powerhouse CS First Boston (CSFB). There he spearheaded the development of technology for creating computer-aided software-writing systems that was so successful that CSFB decided to spin off that business unit into its own company, Seer Technologies. As its Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Wadhwa helped grow the nascent startup into a $118 million publicly traded company. With the explosive growth of the Internet, Wadhwa saw an even greater opportunity to help businesses adapt to new and fast-changing technologies, and founded Relativity Technologies. As a result of his vision, Forbes.com named Wadhwa a Leader of Tomorrow by, and Fortune magazine declared Relativity one of the 25 coolest companies in the world. In Feb 2012, the U.S. Government awarded Wadhwa distinguished recognition as an “Outstanding American by Choice”— for his “commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans.”

Wadhwa holds a B.A. in Computing Studies from the University of Canberra, in Australia, and an MBA from New York University. He has been featured in thousands of articles in worldwide publications, including the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Forbes magazine, The Washington Post,The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, and Science Magazine and has made many appearances on U.S. and international TV stations, including CBS/60 Minutes, PBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, CNBC, and the BBC.

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Testimonials

It was great to present at SVOD and meet world-class entrepreneurs and investors. Our venture was off to a fast start in the funding round after the conference, we had an early closing to the round, and I look forward to being part of SVOD in the future!

Alexei Dunayev

CEO &CoFounder, TranscribeMe & Stanford MBA

Thank you for the opportunity to present Driveway at SVOD. It gave us much needed exposure to the wide investor community. Combining the pitch preparation classes with the presentation content guidance, we came out strong and confident from the podium. During the conference we had a chance to speak to many investors and industry leaders resulting in a very valuable feedback.

Jake Diner

Driveway Software

A lot of energy, lot of very dedicated entrepreneurs here, very passionate, very committed to what they’re doing.

Mitchell (Mitch) Kapor

Partner, Kapor Capital

The founders of the conference are very authentic and these are people that want to change the world and make things better for entrepreneurs and help people and I think that’s a great thing.

Cleary one of the very best conferences we attended and sponsored in Silicon Valley this year. To us the conference truly captured what we see in our daily practice, the substantial opportunities and also the challenges with cross-border business arrangements. We made many new meaningful connections.

Lars Johansson

Partner, K&L Gates

I am delighted to participate in and sponsor SVOD. It is particularly gratifying at this stage of my professional career to be able to support this unique organization and give back to the high-tech community. Looking back, I regret not having the benefits of SVOD network early on, when I really needed it! It is wonderful to see the new startups taking advantage of this very special forum.

Mike Sandler

CEO of Epiphan

Great conference, interesting presentations and most important, relevant participants with concrete ideas and tremendous willingness to mentor and help startups.